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You're locked into whatever rate your reservation is for. This is why you see rate fluctuations on the marketplace for the same instance type. It's also why a

You're locked into whatever rate your reservation is for. This is why you see rate fluctuations on the marketplace for the same instance type. It's also why a 3 year reservation may not make sense.

gtaylor 13y ago
That makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Bummer, though. We just reserved a multi-AZ m3.large RDS instance last week. I wish AWS would take up Google's system of graduated price reductions over steady run duration.
- nirvdrum 13y ago
  The other fun tidbit is on heavy reservations you pay per-hour even if you're not using the machine. That's not the case for the light or medium. So keep that in mind when planning out your reservations. When we switched off EC2 it was financially advantageous to basically give away our heavy instances on the marketplace just to shed the liability.
  - gtaylor 13y ago
    After this latest round of price cuts, I'm starting to question whether I even want to reserve instances on the lower end. An m3.medium is about $52/month on demand vs $35/month (amortized over 12 months with a 1-year heavy usage reservation). In this example, it becomes a question of whether it's worth saving $130'ish a year for the liability that a 1-year m3.medium heavy util reservation represents. At the lower end, that's not a huge amount of liability, but it may be a case where I just don't bother reserving m3.mediums anymore because it's a wash.
    - Aqua_Geek 13y ago
      Maybe my math is off, but I calculated $35/mo for medium utilization m3.medium vs $32/mo for heavy utilization. In that case, I don't think a heavy utilization reservation makes sense but a medium utilization reservation still might (as you're saving ~$20/mo over on-demand).
  - msmithstubbs 13y ago
    I tried to give away a heavy instance in the past but to sell on the Reserved Instance marketplace you must have a US bank account. Worth noting if you are considering heavy instances and are based outside the US. You will be stuck with them for the life of the reservation term.
- eropple 13y ago
  That's when you talk to an AWS account rep and twist their arm a bit.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    Hell, in my experience, you don't even have to twist much. They're usually pretty happy to do a "just this once..." sort of thing.

You're locked into whatever rate your reservation is for. This is why you see rate fluctuations on the marketplace for the same instance type. It's also why a 3 year reservation may not make sense.

gtaylor 13y ago

That makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Bummer, though. We just reserved a multi-AZ m3.large RDS instance last week. I wish AWS would take up Google's system of graduated price reductions over steady run duration.

nirvdrum 13y ago
The other fun tidbit is on heavy reservations you pay per-hour even if you're not using the machine. That's not the case for the light or medium. So keep that in mind when planning out your reservations. When we switched off EC2 it was financially advantageous to basically give away our heavy instances on the marketplace just to shed the liability.
- gtaylor 13y ago
  After this latest round of price cuts, I'm starting to question whether I even want to reserve instances on the lower end. An m3.medium is about $52/month on demand vs $35/month (amortized over 12 months with a 1-year heavy usage reservation). In this example, it becomes a question of whether it's worth saving $130'ish a year for the liability that a 1-year m3.medium heavy util reservation represents. At the lower end, that's not a huge amount of liability, but it may be a case where I just don't bother reserving m3.mediums anymore because it's a wash.
  - Aqua_Geek 13y ago
    Maybe my math is off, but I calculated $35/mo for medium utilization m3.medium vs $32/mo for heavy utilization. In that case, I don't think a heavy utilization reservation makes sense but a medium utilization reservation still might (as you're saving ~$20/mo over on-demand).
- msmithstubbs 13y ago
  I tried to give away a heavy instance in the past but to sell on the Reserved Instance marketplace you must have a US bank account. Worth noting if you are considering heavy instances and are based outside the US. You will be stuck with them for the life of the reservation term.
eropple 13y ago
That's when you talk to an AWS account rep and twist their arm a bit.
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  Hell, in my experience, you don't even have to twist much. They're usually pretty happy to do a "just this once..." sort of thing.